Review: The Devil You Knew by Mike Cobb

Mike Cobb unravels a sinister, masterfully penned drama in The Devil You Knew. Summoning demons of the past still haunting America today, this period mystery jabs at the most painful nerves of culture and history.

The tone is grimly set in the opening chapters – the deep South of the 1960s, where religion and bigotry reign over a land already scarred by so much sin. When young girls begin disappearing, and then turning up dead, the small community at the heart of this novel is shaken to its core. Billy Tarwater would rather doodle in the hymnal than make the ominous Walk to the Southern Baptist altar, but when he stumbles across the body of the first missing girl, his young life is pulled into an inescapable series of events.

As the local authorities hunt for a suspect, a dearth of clues leads to a predictable conclusion – racism results in pinning the murders on an innocent man, Sam Jeppsworth. Billy Tarwater’s family is pulled further into the muck of the murders when they attempt to shield Sam from the hands of a veritable lynch mob.

The first two-thirds of the novel unravels this injustice in the early 6os, before leaping seventeen years ahead. Billy has grown up, but the justice system has not, and the traumatic abduction of Cynthia, his schoolboy crush, has never left him. He is not only determined to deliver freedom to Sam, but also to find the real killer who slipped away into obscurity – or perhaps just changed his MO. Billy must connect the dots between crimes stretching across two decades, unearth old wounds close to home, and challenge the toxic beliefs that continue to push back against equality and justice in the American South.

Supported by a rich cast of three-dimensional characters, a host of red herrings, and a looming suspicion that readers have known the culprit all along, this is a powerfully written thriller, which addresses issues of police misconduct, biased investigations, small-town corruption, and journalistic integrity, all themes that are just as relevant today as they were back then. Both parts of the story are compelling in their own way, and Shakespearean in how they unexpectedly unfold, with no shortage of emotion.

The colloquial nature of the writing is seamless, promptly dropping readers into the cadence, pace, and idiomatic speech of another time and place. Many writers will slip in their consistency over the course of a lengthy novel, but Cobb maintains a Faulknerian dedication to language. Telling a story in two distinct timelines is a challenge, particularly with so many of the same characters changing over time, but Cobb rises to the occasion, depicting these characters as significantly matured and nuanced. There are few if any proofreading errors, the dialogue is clean and functional, the pacing is strong, and the arc of the drama is believable and affecting.

Reading this novel is akin to stepping back in time and joining the hunt for a cold-blooded monster who represents the darkest truths of human nature. Cobb has constructed a complex procedural mystery with poignant historical accuracy, never letting readers forget about the timeless issues at the novel’s core, resulting in a dark and enthralling historical thriller.